â€?Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man": Rabindranath Tagore

Published Nov 14, 2017, 3:09 pm IST

Updated Nov 14, 2017, 3:09 pm IST

â€?Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man": Rabindranath Tagore

Each year, on the fourteenth of November, we celebrate
Childrenâ€™s Day in India, in memory of Prime Minister Nehruâ€™s famous love of
children and roses. He compared the former to the latter, saying that children,
like roses, needed to be nurtured carefully for they were the future of the
nations.

And yet, what is it, in reality, that we are passing down to
our children? Hunger, violence, diseases, an environment that is as tainted
with pollutants as it is with hatred. We seem to have deprived our children of
their childhood. My own childhood is a place of happiness I like to revisit,
but that happiness came from being free. There was safety in neighbourhoods and
parks. There was fresh air to breathe and one did not have to worry about
allergies and injected fruits. One went to school serenely, not wondering about
death or sexual molestation. Perhaps I exaggerate; perhaps dangers were there
then too, but definitely not the way we seem to be buried under them as we are
today.

According to reports of International agencies like Unicef
and the World Bank, the Indian child is among the most disadvantaged in the
world. Statistics show that every 15 seconds claims the life of one more child
under the age of 5 years in our country, giving us the horrifying figure of some
2 million such deaths annually. Additionally, in a country whose food-grains
are exported, and immense wastage caused by the rotting and wastage of
food-grains in go-downs, five thousand children die every day in India from
hunger and hunger related diseases. Yes! Five thousand daily!

In our capital city today, children are breathing poison. Is
this the legacy we want to hand down to our children? Masks and inhalers and
the lungs of a person who smokes fifty cigarettes a day? Each year, we are
aware of what will happen in November, but the entire year passes with no
strategies to control the various ways in which we are polluting our air. Knee
jerk reactions post the event, when the situation has assumed critical and
emergency levels is hardly helpful. Nor are the citizens protests or the
governmentsâ€™ blame game. We know the dust from construction of the metro around
Delhi will add to the problem and yet we have no dust monitoring mechanisms or
penalty. We know the burning of stubble in fields is going to toxify the air,
but beyond blaming the farmers, the government has placed no bans or provided
alternate means to already debt-burdened farmers. We are aware of what will
follow post Diwali, and yet we debate whether bursting crackers is a
fundamental religious right! Again, our country takes on the dubious mantle of
having the most deaths due to pollution. According to the Lancet Commission on
Pollution and Health, 2.5 million Indians died early due to pollution levels.
Nine millions deaths were attributed to pollution in 2015. How much worse does
it have to get before we take pre-emptive action? According to a UN report,
570,000 children die annually from respiratory disorders caused by
environmental pollutants. This is the air we are giving to our children.

Our children are becoming accustomed to living in a violent
world. Whether that child is Pradyuman Thakur or Junaid Khan who gets killed by
a mob on a train because he is a Muslim or five year old who gets raped in her
classroom by a forty year old peon, our children are inheriting an atmosphere
of fear. Learning to look around them
without the trust they need to look at the world with. We might today be
celebrating children and childhood, but still more and more children are being
abused and violated. Child marriage and rape continues for many; these little
girls who are raped by their much older husbands have no idea what childhood
means. Children work in hazardous jobs, they are underpaid, slaved and
ill-treated. Even in so-called normal families, children are unaware of what
the freedom of childhood we felt as kids is. Now, nearing fifty, I can look
back and realise the truth of what my parents used to say all the time, â€?Enjoy
these years, you will remember them as the best time of your life.â€? I wonder if our children will be able to
remember their childhood with the same fondness? Times have changed no doubt,
but will they remember having spent more time interacting with their gadgets
than playing with friends? Will they remember laughing with their parents or
seeing their parents on their mobiles?

I have often heard my childrenâ€™s friends say things that
have wrenched at my heart. â€?I hardly see my dad or mom,â€? â€?Iâ€™m not allowed to go
out to play in the park; I have allergies,â€? â€?Iâ€™m not allowed to go out without
my didi, its not safe,â€? â€?Most of my conversations with my parents are about
college applicationsâ€?.how to get there.â€? There is little of childhood in these
words; very little of the carefreeness I associate with my childhood. Why is it
always about â€?getting thereâ€?? Why donâ€™t we teach them that they have reached;
here in life. They are here to live this life, not to get somewhere. Parents
and teachers are not giving real life lessons about the things that really
matter in life. How to be happy, how to find peace, how to be of service to the
world, how to laugh, how to keep your inner child and innocence alive in this
very corrupting world. There is too much children have to face these days.
Social media exposes them all too early to so much we learnt much later in
life. It also puts pressures on them we might not be able to relate to.
Pressure to look good, about their weight, about being seen with the â€?rightâ€™
group or at the â€?rightâ€™ party. Marks are skyrocketing, while admissions into
schools and colleges are getting harder. There are no hours spent idling and
daydreaming or playing cricket in the parks.

Maybe this childrenâ€™s day, we give our children not mere lip
service. No speeches in school and a show put up for an hourâ€™s entertainment. Maybe
we just connect with them. Tell them about your values, what is important to
you and why, share your history, your stories. Listen to them. Instead of
reminding them of their responsibilities, let them be children for a day.
Without stress. Not the rituals of celebration, but real connection with the
child inside your child and inside you as well. This childrenâ€™s day, put your
phones down, play, talk, take them to an orphanage, let them see how little
some of the world takes for granted. Make them a little less entitled, a little
more caring, for they have to inherit this world and correct the mistakes we
have made.